


Reflections

by fivekrystalpetals



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Aftermath of Pride Reveal, Black Hayate is best puppy, Gen, Riza is still scared of shadows, before promised day, episode 45
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:41:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26190565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fivekrystalpetals/pseuds/fivekrystalpetals
Summary: Riza Hawkeye waits in the Central Park for her friend, Rebecca Catalina and unexpectedly, ends up meeting two people, one of whom she never wanted to meet again. Ever.
Relationships: Mrs. Bradley & Pride (Selim Bradley)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	Reflections

Riza Hawkeye was pleased to find the bench under the large oak tree empty. Tossing her white mantle upon the back, she sat down and opened her handbag to pull out the novel she had been reading last night. She had half an hour to kill before Rebecca arrived at Central Station. While she was truly looking forward to meet her longtime friend, she still dreaded the scenario of them being eavesdropped upon or secretly watched from the shadows and of inadvertently putting Rebecca in danger as well. Of course, a newfound fear of darkness had permanently been engraved into her heart.

_It is late morning, Riza,_ she chided herself. _P_ _eople are bustling about Central. Surely, they can’t spy on you in the open._

Black Hayate must have sensed the change in her emotions, mostly bordering on terror, for he protectively padded closer to her and nudged at her fingers with his muzzle. The puppy was really intuitive in such things. _I should thank Sgt. Fuery for putting him under my care._ The other night, if it had not been for Hayate and Colonel Mustang, who had called her with the uncanny timing of his, she might have totally lost her mind after facing the powerful homunculus masquerading as the son of the President of Amestris.

Presently, her fear subsided into a calm bubble beneath her skin, ready to explode if she ever met the demon child again. She hoped against hope she would never have to visit the President’s home again. Or, she won’t need to...

_Speak of the devil_ , she murmured to herself as she rose to greet Madame Bradley and the so-called Selim Bradley.

“Is this your day off, dear?” Mrs. Bradley asked. Then, looking over her, she smiled and added, “You look beautiful in your casual clothes.”

Riza returned her smile in spite of herself and ran an eye down at what she was wearing. A purple blouse, matched with a navy blue pencil skirt and white pumps. Not really a remarkable fashion statement, but she always chose clothes for their practicality rather than their gaudiness unlike the lady she was about to meet that afternoon.

“Thank you, Madame Bradley.”

Mrs. Bradley waved her hand at the bench, a silent gesture for her permission to join her in her brown study. Riza nodded immediately, and with a little bow, she scooted aside to make place for her. The lady sat down, her lips curled in a wince that vanished as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by her usual, kindly smile. Selim, as Riza continued to call him, kept standing, his hand in his mother’s.

“If you are dressed so nicely, then...let me guess? Waiting for your date?”

Riza was mildly surprised that she would come to such a conclusion, though there was definitely a slight undertone of amusement in her voice. Before she could say anything, Selim chimed in, “Who, Ms. Hawkeye? The Flame Colonel?”

_As if! You literally threatened me to keep my distance from him?!_ But she didn’t dare say so out loud. “No, not Colonel Mustang. Why would you think so?”

“Hmm?” The boy lifted his false doe eyes to hers, as if he had expected only a yes or no and not a question he was supposed to answer. “Oh, Father tells me stories of your adventures, that you are always by the Flame Colonel’s side. So I was wondering if you are meeting up to plan some other new adventure.”

Riza could easily read the underlying meaning of his statement: _Who are you meeting, Lt. Hawkeye? What are you planning?_

“Oh, I see,” she answered coolly. “No, I’m meeting a friend who will be arriving at the Station in—,” she glanced down at her watch, happy to avoid those piercing eyes. “In twenty minutes.” Hopefully, this should stop the train of further probing questions veiled under a child’s genuine curiosity.

Selim opened his mouth to probably ask who this friend of hers was, when his mother interrupted him. Mrs. Bradley seemed blissfully ignorant of the silent conversation that just passed around her and had found a sudden maternal interest in Black Hayate.

“Oh, dear! It’s such a precious creature.” She cooed softly at him. “What is its name?”

“Black Hayate, Madame.”

“ ** _Strange_** —uh, strange name for a dog?” Did the homunculus just let down his act of little ‘Selim’? Was he that shocked by the name she had chosen for her pet? Riza bit back a smile seeing him steal a sidelong glance at his adopted mother. She had not noticed the sudden crack in his voice. Or perhaps, she thought her child was growing into his puberty. “Can I pet it too?”

As soon as Selim extended his tiny fingers towards him, Hayate snarled from a rare ferocity Riza had never seen in him and squirreled into her skirt. At the same time, the homunculus pouted in disappointment and ran into his mother’s arms. The look on his face was so perfect that Riza had to do everything to stop herself from handing over her puppy for him to play with.

She looked at the Fuhrer’s wife, who was currently patting her child’s head and consoling him for the failed attempt in making friends with the canine.

Mrs. Bradley was a human, all right. Black Hayate apparently didn’t have a problem in licking all over her face or letting her touch his fur. She seemed like a kindly lady too; the kind who makes cookies and chocolates for all the kids in the neighborhood, to whom kids run when they want to listen to a sweet bedtime tale. _But Selim looks like a kind, good-natured boy as well but he has the heart of a devil._

Was she a homunculus? No, the bloodlust that emanated from Gluttony and the child in front of her didn’t come off her. Then what?

Was she innocent of the true identity of her husband and her son? Or, was she in with them?

Selim—or, Pride the first Homunculus, as he called himself—was carefully observing the nuances on her face. Even though Riza could make out the sparkle of malice in his otherwise innocent looking eyes, she was compelled to appreciate the cunning with which he deceived all the humans around him. It was a mere chance by which she had discovered his true identity, and with even more difficulty had she passed on this information to the Colonel.

_No. No, I must not think about that. Pride might read my mind and know that his secret has been passed on._

Riza remembered his words from the other day. **_You understand well. You know what will happen if you let this out. Your companions and Colonel Mustang will not come out unscathed. I will be always watching you from the shadows._**

Sure, even if he had heard it, his face betrayed nothing. Mrs. Bradley continued to lovingly ruffle his hair and the child smiled broadly, his eyes two shining slits in his face.

_The angelic face of a demon...!_ _It wasn’t all a dream, was it?_

Her fingers instinctively rubbed at her wrists. The marks on them were physical, so no, definitely not. The incident of the night wasn’t entirely an imagination of her frightened mind. It was real; and, so were the creature’s shadows which had prowled behind her, which had wrapped all over her body making her feel more vulnerable and exposed than ever before in her life. And, so was the half healed wound, the incision that one of its tendrils had dug in her face to squeeze out a thin line of blood. She shuddered inwardly as she imagined his smug smirk broadening some more out of the sheer delight he got from torturing a powerless human like her.

Mrs. Bradley was asking a few more questions about her work and her life. But Riza could register nothing. She was already feeling sick, unable to stay any longer in the vicinity of a bloodthirsty monster like Selim Bradley.

Mrs. Bradley realized how gloomy Selim had become once he found that Riza Hawkeye’s puppy apparently took a strong dislike only to him. Neither could she understand it. The dog was lovable in every way. A perfectly gregarious creature. It seemed to love human company so much unlike the stray dogs that prowled around her maiden home.

Maybe, Selim accidentally pinched its fur when he first laid his fingers on it.

Could be.

But an unwanted thought had already passed through her mind. There was a time in her life, during her younger days, when she wished for a baby and hoped that she too could enjoy the joys of motherhood. Part of her wish got fulfilled in the form of poor Selim who lost both his parents at such a tender age. She had always wanted to ask her husband about his parents, what they did, how they had passed away and how exactly they were related to him.

Unfortunately, he was too reticent in any matters regarding Selim. She knew her husband never kept any secrets from her, but the lineage of their adopted son was always something that lay in between them, in which he would not or could not take her into his confidence. Many a times, she herself had wondered about the child and ended up creating such absurd theories that she would become horrified at her own imagination and shake them out of her head. 

However, Mrs. Bradley had the strongest partiality towards one of her theories which seemed the most appropriate, taking all of the factors into consideration.

_Selim’s parents were notorious criminals._

_And they were killed by the military._

Then, surely, it would explain why King was so hesitant to reveal his lineage. He must not want the innocent child to be influenced in any way for the crimes his parents committed. Plus, a man of his status, the Fuhrer President, being related to notorious criminals would be a disgrace, no doubt.

Not that she ever complained. Or, even got a reason for that. It was in the hands of Providence who a man might be related to. Nobody could decide to whom or where they might be born. King was everything she could have asked for. She felt honored as ever to be the wife of such a man. As selfish as it was, she couldn’t help feeling a bit happier ever since Selim had come to live with them. Her usual mundane way of life being the President’s wife had become a bit more bearable. King was getting busier as the days became older; and try as she might, she could never get him to leave his job and spend the last of their days together. He was too driven by his duty and too patriotic for that. Always putting the affairs of his people over his own failing health.

But today, she was unable to shake off the thought which had unnecessarily intruded into her mind. Before the First Branch burned down, King had got her some books from the library on her insistence. Books on parenting. She wanted to do everything for Selim, and never give him a chance to miss his parents or feel sad or lonely in his new home. It was then that she had read an article about children and their behavior around animals being a deciding factor for their growth.

The research claimed that the disposition of a child can be studied from the way the pets acted around them. The other way around too is plausible. If the child acts too cruelly around creatures smaller and weaker than him, then the chances lay in the favor of him repeating the same as he grew up into adulthood.

She mentally shook her head. _No, it can’t be!_ Selim had grown up to be a kind and good-natured boy. He was his mother’s and father’s pride and joy. Yes, he might be biologically related to criminals or their likes, but with enough love and care from his parents, he would grow up to be a fine man. The former Fuhrer President’s son. A role model for the youth of the country, just like his father. He would make his parents proud.

Presently, she was shaken out of her reverie. How long had she been sitting next to Riza dreaming with her eyes open? She shook her head again. Even in her fifties, she was such a klutz. How did King even fall in love with her? The thought almost made her smile.

Riza was rising to leave. She was saying her farewells to Selim and her. Then, the young girl crossed the green to walk over onto the pavement.

He didn’t know what to feel. He wasn’t angry; he was not Wrath after all. He wasn’t sad either; it was below him to fret over anything this trivial. His act as Selim Bradley, or the Fuhrer President’s _kind_ and _good-natured_ son, had many a times forced him to act out petty human emotions in spite of himself. Sorrow, guilt, excitement. Pride never understood the necessity of all those emotions. The closest guess he could come to was that those emotions were what distinguished and elevated the homunculi from the weak humans.

At the moment, however, he didn’t know what to feel when the dog shrunk away from his hand. Yet again.

Was this a thing he couldn’t do? Something that Pride the Arrogant couldn’t do?! _No way!_ When a mere human like Wrath’s wife or worse, Lt. Hawkeye could snuggle up to the creature, then why couldn’t he? 

_Stupid humans, stupid animals._ Once Father achieved his goal of becoming God, Pride would certainly request him to create new species of cats and dogs which acted as creature companions for them and were in every possible way better than the human pets. He raised his hand to try and touch the animal once again, and this time it didn’t hide. Instead, it growled and sat up on its haunches in a stance protective of its master.

Another one of the creatures which could accurately sense the presence of them homunculi...

The others being the warriors from Xing. From what Envy told him, they could instantly and perfectly pinpoint his location, however he might change his form. According to Wrath, the prince of Xing was an excellent fighter, someone of his caliber, someone who could fight on par with a homunculus with the Ultimate Eye. _Co_ _uld he have been exaggerating?_ Lately, Wrath had started to sway to the tune of the humans. Although Pride had put him back into his place, he wasn’t entirely sure if his allegiance still lay with the homunculi.

To add to all the already growing trouble, Greed had run away with the Prince’s body.

Pride was hardly surprised. He had anticipated such treachery from Greed. If he were Greed, and so desperately wanted to be with the humans betraying his own kind even after being purged of his previous memories and recreated thanks to Father, he would definitely wait until after the Promised Day before dabbling in the human affairs. How foolish was he that he had to run away when they were mere days from relishing the fruits of their long-awaited victory!

Of course, he wasn’t Pride and didn’t have the kind of intellect that he possessed. But he had always imagined Greed to be at least more intelligent than Gluttony. _Guess there are still things I have got to learn._

Honestly, he was more surprised when he heard that Father had recreated Greed with the body of an infiltrator like the prince of Xing. Father should have killed him at the first chance he got. Or better, asked Gluttony to swallow them up so that the prince and his henchmen rot in nothingness for an eternity. The foreigners were unnecessary nuisance they should have nipped in the bud, especially when they were this close to the Promised Day. 

Perhaps, Father didn't bother with such a trifle because it didn’t matter. Whatever the humans planned or struggled with, they could never defeat them. Sloth, with a great deal of effort than he gave him credit for, had finished the tunnel just in time. The Crimson Alchemist, with whom he had the pleasure of making an acquaintance only a few days ago, had completed the last of the Crests of Blood. Everything was in place. All they needed to do now was patiently wait for the Promised Day.

Wrath’s wife was still talking to Lt. Hawkeye. There could probably be nothing more gratifying than seeing the Colonel’s pet, both master and dog silently cowering before his eyes. If there was ever a moment Pride let his guard down and decided not to hold a grudge against the one human he hated the most among the others, all he had to do was remember Wrath’s recounting of the very last words uttered by his sister before she died at the Colonel’s hands.

_I can’t wait to see your eyes be filled with torment; the day is right here._

**_Rest assured, my sister. The day is finally here._ **

Pride guessed from the way the loyal lieutenant was squirming in her place that she could no more bear the bloodlust she claimed she could sense off of him. He smirked internally at the indiscernible tremble in her legs as she rose from the bench and picked up her dog. With a bow, a wave of farewell and the clap of her heels as she walked down the pavement, she soon vanished out of their sight. 

Then, he looked up at the creature he had been made to call Mother for the past year. She didn’t see anything amiss with the way the animal was reacting to him, did she?

Pride didn’t in the least bother when Riza Hawkeye had discovered his real identity. He had threatened her enough for her to sleep peacefully at night, far less would she dare reveal his identity to the Colonel she so worshipped. But, for some reason he couldn’t explain, he dreaded the scenario of Mother finding out that he is a homunculus. He didn’t care if Mother ever found out Wrath’s identity and hated him for it. All he wanted was to protect his own. _S_ _he must never find out who I am._

Though her face was wrinkled and old now, there was a time in her life that the very face was remarkable for its beauty enough to steal the heart of a homunculus. As he watched her in the pale morning sun, her eyes glowing up with the love she always smothered him in, he decided there could be nothing in the Universe more fascinating than Mother’s existence.

Pride didn’t believe in love. He didn't believe in afterlife, either. At least, neither of the two existed for an immortal being like himself. In any case, if there ever arose the most unfortunate scenario of him being reborn as a human being... _**let this creature be my mother in that life too...**_

“Mother?”

“Yes, Selim?”

“Can we get a puppy too?”


End file.
